In current wireless communication systems, a mobile station and its supporting infrastructure equipment are able to negotiate with one another to reach a particular service configuration. This negotiation process is typically referred to as a service negotiation procedure. The reason a negotiation is necessary is that, in some instances, the mobile station may request certain services from the infrastructure equipment which are not supported by the infrastructure equipment, and vice versa.
To implement the service negotiation procedure, the services are assigned service options. As an example, within the infrastructure equipment, a plurality of different transcoders can be utilized in the infrastructure equipment. However, when a communication between the infrastructure equipment and the mobile station is established, only one type of transcoder within the infrastructure equipment is assigned to the particular communication. If, during the communication, the mobile station requests a different type of transcoder to be implemented (because a different service is requested), the service negotiation procedure is implemented in an attempt to accommodate the request of the mobile station. However, a major problem within the infrastructure equipment is that, during transcoder switching, synchronization at the signaling layer (typically Layer 2, or L2) between the particular transcoder and the mobile station is lost. As in any communication system, once L2 synchronization is lost it is difficult to regain in an efficient matter.
Thus, a need exists for an efficient method and apparatus for providing L2 synchronization during transcoder switching.